Maria Cristina of the Immaculate Conception Brando

Maria Cristina of the Immaculate Conception Brando, S.V.E.G.S. (1 May 1856 – 20 January 1906), was an Italian nun and the foundress of the Sisters, Expiatory Victims of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, an international teaching institute. She was confirmed for canonization in 2014 after Pope Francis approved a miracle that had been found to have been attributed to her intercession and was canonized by him on 17 May 2015.

She was born Adelaide Brando in Naples in 1856 to Giovanni Giuseppe Brando and Maria Concetta Marrazzo. Her mother died after her birth and she was home schooled. As a young girl, she felt a call towards religious life. She attended mass daily and, at the age of twelve, she took a personal vow of chastity, soon trying to enter a Neapolitan monastery. Her father refused her to enter and stopped her from doing so, but he relented and allowed her to enter the Poor Clare monastery at Fiorentine.

Brando fell ill twice and returned home to Naples. When she had fully recovered from her ailments, she joined the Sacramentine nuns, as had been her wish. She assumed the religious name of Maria Cristina of the Immaculate Conception and took her vows in 1876.

Brando left that institute due to illness, and went on to found the Sisters, Expiatory Victims of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in 1878, for which papal approval was granted on 20 July 1903, the day that Pope Leo XIII died. Her health declined at the beginning of the new century though ushering in a prosperous time for her religious institute, which grew at a rapid pace. It also received assistance from the future Venerable Michelangelo Longo of Marigliano and future saint Ludovico of Casoria, O.F.M. She served as the Superior General of her institute, being noted for deep piousness and her devotion to the passion of Jesus Christ and the Eucharist. She would sleep close to the exposed Host as a means of drawing strength and remaining close to the Lord.

Brando died of her illnesses in 1906.

Brando's cause of canonization was opened under Pope Paul VI on 4 May 1972 and she was declared a Servant of God. Pope John Paul II recognized that she had led a life of heroic virtue and proclaimed her to be Venerable on 2 July 1994. An independent process on a miracle needed for beatification opened and closed in 1995 and it culminated in the promulgation of a decree on that miracle on 20 December 2001. This led to her beatification on 27 April 2003 by Pope John Paul II.

Pope Francis approved the final miracle needed for her canonization on 17 September 2014 and a consistory was held on 20 October 2014 to determine the date of her canonization, but it was not decided upon. In a consistory on 14 February 2015, the pope declared that the canonization would occur on 17 May 2015; she was canonized at the Vatican.